


Process of Becoming

by blueincandescence



Series: Law of Life [3]
Category: X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-08-08
Updated: 2006-08-08
Packaged: 2018-12-13 00:38:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 20,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11748498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueincandescence/pseuds/blueincandescence
Summary: With Logan back in her life, Rogue evaluates what she's learned from their past in order to bring about a change for the better in their future.





	1. Always On My Mind

**Author's Note:**

> “Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through.  
> Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it.  
> This is a kind of death.”  
> – Anais Nin –

Care for an extended metaphor?   
  
My mind is a ball of green Play-Doh. As I continually roll it between my palms, swirls of brown often appear, sometimes blue or red or silver. Black. Once, believing they’d contaminate my green, I resented the other colors. I pressed them down inside, smoothing the surface over with my thumbs. If I didn’t do the job right and someone noticed, I instantly became defensive out of what amounted to shame. Not shame for being a mutant in general or one with poison skin in particular. Shame for the other half of my mutation, the half that made the other colors stick. The half that has never let the echo of David’s internal scream fade completely away.   
  
An hysterical sort of certainly overtook me the moment I’d seen David’s empty eyes slide back under twitching lids. I’d done that. I’d kissed him, and the result was his body, laid out on my bed, unnaturally stiff and gasping for air. The first words I’d stammered after my parents had burst into my room were a lie, one I’d been quick to retract with a confession that was more a plea for understanding than an admission of guilt. On the same breath, I’d choked out, “Don’t touch.” Anyone. Ever. A rule to live by. I’d always found rules so lame.   
  
But I was convinced.  
  
My parent’s hadn’t been. They’d thought the shock of David’s seizure had caused me to go a little crazy. Even after blood tests revealed an active mutant gene, they’d had trouble believing that alone validated my frantic refusal to let anyone touch my skin. But who else did they have to believe? There wasn’t a doctor in Meridian who could make up rules any better than mine. Hospitals are notorious for their reluctance to treat mutants, ostensibly for insurance reasons. Anderson Regional was no different. David they kept. They sent me home.  
  
There, the atmosphere was tense, strained by pity. An utter tragedy, the community at large had opined. Star basketball player in a coma and a poor girl’s life irrevocably altered, all because of a genetic disorder. Too heartbreaking. Condolences poured in. I didn’t want to hear them. Mom gave me daily summaries regardless. Tuning her out was simple, at least. I had David’s memories to get lost in.   
  
Lost is the right word. The more I agonized over what I’d done to David, the more the line between what was mine and what was his blurred. The David in my head was a secret until well after the real David had recovered. I came to regret not keeping him that way. I thought I never should have told.   
  
I certainly hadn’t intended to. I’d been digging in my closet for a pair of shoes, exaggerating the noise it took to find them in an effort to drown out my mom’s voice. I was definitely not in a communicative mood.  
  
“Grandma D’Ancanto called while you were sleeping. I told her you were taking a nap. She’d have a fit if she knew we were letting you sleep in until three in the afternoon. Jan Hilliard stopped by – ”  
  
“Where are my Flyers?” I’d interrupted, not taking my head out of my closet.  
  
“Pardon?”  
  
“My PF Flyers. Like Chucks, only from The Sandlot. You ordered them special, remember? It was a whole big ordeal. They got lost in shipping and Dad had to – ”  
  
The image my synapses had connected with “Dad” had been of a gray-haired bear-like man with a full beard, not a medium-sized man with a receding brown hairline and a moustache. My father.   
  
In frustration, I’d flipped a wedged sandal against the back of my closet.   
  
Used to my mood swings but sounding unsure, Mom had replied, “I don’t know, honey. Maybe they got mixed in with the garage sale stuff?”  
  
“Great, Mom. They were my favorite pair. Thanks a lot.” Lying beat explaining any day. I’d stomped to my feet, waving toward the door with one gloved hand. “Can you just leave, please? I have homework.”  
  
“Don’t you want to hear what Jan had to say? She’s been to see David’s mom.”  
  
That had gotten my attention. A tingling of dread beginning to spread through me, I’d prompted, “Well, what did she say? Did she ask?”  
  
“Yes, she asked. David’s memory is fine.”  
  
“Fine? Completely? No gaps?”  
  
“No gaps.”  
  
“Can he still play basketball? Can he name the presidents backwards and forwards? Did she ask him?”  
  
“I told you, his memory is fine. Why does it matter if he can – ”  
  
“Because I can,” I’d interjected, leaning against the wall for support. “I can name the presidents backwards and forwards – I shouldn’t be able to do that. A few weeks ago, I could sink twenty-one crumpled paper balls into my trashcan – in a row – from all the way over here.”   
  
“I don’t…I’m not following you, honey.”  
  
The backs of my eyes had burned. “I took things from him, Momma. Likes, dislikes. Memories. I have to make sure it wasn’t for good, okay? Make sure for me.”  
  
Mom was silent.  
  
“Please?” I begged. I could hardly get the word out.   
  
“Anna Marie…”   
  
The way she’d said my name and the openly alarmed expression on her face had caused my stomach to lurch. Shame. I’d known the feeling well.  
  
“Honey, I don’t – Do you think I need to…to call someone for you? Someone…professional?”  
  
My insides had curdled. This had been the first time Mom had even suggested that the magical healing properties of family solidarity wouldn’t be enough to see me through to the daybreak horizon or whatever other footsteps-in-the-sand clichés kept her hope alive. I had no hope, just an overwhelming urge to preserve as much of normal as possible. To do that, I had to prove to her that I wasn’t schizophrenic. So I had to bury David. I had to learn to push thoughts out of my mind.  
  
The one thing I appreciated about the headscarves and hoods my dad had me wear was the blinder effect. It was awkward to turn my neck and my peripheral vision was partially obstructed, so the only direction I could really see in was straight ahead. In the hallways of my school, I walked chin down, eyes up, and let other people worry about keeping their distance. Complete tunnel vision, that’s how I got through my days. I wallowed and cried, sure, but only when I was by myself.  
  
I was by myself a lot. Natalie tried to be a good best friend, she did, but there was no feigning normalcy with her. What did we have in common anymore? She was so high-energy, and I was doing my utmost to transform myself into empty space. I was a void at our lunch table, sucking all the usual fun out of everything. I took to eating in a lonely corner down the band hallway. In exile, I’d felt comfortable. Well enough.  
  
Well enough was decidedly not enough for Dad, not by a long shot. It was sort of amusing to me, how rationally he’d reacted to the fallout from David’s coma. “We have to face facts,” he’d assert whenever anyone got too unreasonable. He never verbalized what those facts were, only that we all needed to face them.   
  
He set the example by giving up his decade-long friendship with David’s dad like it was nothing. That was just the way my dad operated. Simplify everything, and, while you’re at it, make yourself useful. Moping wasn’t useful, he was quick to point out. Sarcasm, also not useful. Reprimand after reprimand, so hypercritical and so like him that I sometimes broke down into tearful laughter while he was still mid-sermon. Needless to say, that wasn’t useful, either.  
  
Aunt Shirley, Mom’s sister, was my savior on the Dad front. She gave me an afternoon job taking inventory and ringing up orders at the bar downtown she co-owned with Uncle Nuts. Not only did a job classify as useful, Aunt Shirley and Uncle Nuts were two people who knew how to let well enough alone. She’d squeeze my shoulder and tell me I was doing a good job, even on the days I played games and not much else. Behind her back, Uncle Nuts would serve me Amaretto Sours, and we’d pretend they were lemonades.   
  
The bar increasingly became my haven as things at home with Mom declined. Arguments with Dad were par for the course, but I couldn’t stand arguing with Mom. So, naturally, I ended up picking more and more fights with her. I hated that she was different now. She’d used to be fun and accepting, but the need to see me healthy and happy had consumed her. She, in turn, hated that I’d ceased being the adventurous, optimistic child she’d spent seventeen years raising.   
  
For both of us, the sky had fallen with the onset of my mutation. Three and half months later, the ground crumbled under its weight. Spectacularly.  
  
Mom touched me. She’d known not to. Impulse had won out anyway. Beyond reason, she’d thought that maybe nothing bad would happen to her because I was asleep or cured or a liar, anything that would mean she could have her daughter back. Instead, she’d gotten a thirteen-hour hospital stay. When she’d woken up, she’d given Dad this wonderful, drowsy smile. As her gaze had slid from my red-rimmed eyes to my forehead, it had waned considerably.   
  
Dual memories of the conversation we’d almost had about the David in my head had looped through my mind. My shame had crashed down in the pit of my stomach, along with it her fear. That night before, in the seconds between when she’d put her fingertips to my cheek and when she’d hit the ground, my skin had poisoned her hope. A return to normalcy was no longer a foreseeable future for either of us.   
  
The fallout was rapid. I was no longer welcome at Meridian High School, since the superintendent of my high school had decided taking a hard stance against my “unfortunate but jeopardizing condition” was a good way to get people to forget the rumors that he was embezzling from the district. I worked fulltime at the bar, turning skittish as Southaven Mutant Treatment Clinic in Blackhawk increasingly became a topic of conversation between my parents. Then the day came when I was told a Dr. Rao was coming to the house to layout some options for me.  
  
I left that night. I got caught and sent to Southaven. I left again and again and again, until I finally got far enough to be gone.  
  
Whatever lessons I should have learned from running away aside, the one that stuck was that if I couldn’t put up a convincing well-adjusted front, I’d be sent away, whether it be to some obscure clinic deemed “the best place for me” or out onto the streets.   
  
That’s why it’d been so simple for Mystique to trick me with her Bobby routine. I’d messed up and proven that I didn’t even fit in with other mutants, so I had to go. It was a terrible feeling, being told I wasn’t wanted by someone I’d thought was a friend. But, in the context of my life, it’d made perfect sense.  
  
Bobby, who’d, at that time, still had a loving family tucked neatly away in Boston, hadn’t see the logic in it anywhere. “You should’ve known better,” he’d said after the Logan in my mind had receded and I was no longer too strange to be around. “This is your home. No one’s ever going to make you leave. Not if I have anything to say about it.” He’d given me a grin then, his blue eyes and his affection appealingly clear. I’d basked in his stability even as I’d begrudged it. Trusting stability was something I had to relearn. That was a weakness.  
  
God knows, if there’s one thing that frustrates me in this world it’s my own flaws. The many dents and humps on the surface of my Play-Doh mind invariably catch my eye just when I think I’ve finished molding the perfect sphere. Sometimes, I just want to give up already. I want to squeeze the Play-Doh between my knuckles, toss the whole mess over my shoulder, and start fresh. That was the appeal of letting Warbird take over for those two weeks in New York City and the seven months I’d been comatose after. She’d been the mental equivalent of saying, “Fuck it,” and plopping my ass onto the curb.  
  
No start-over-fresh Play-Doh for me when I’d eventually woken up, though. Just the old version, with plenty of green on the surface but a more volatile swirl of other colors pressed down inside. My continual rolling slowed. The ease at which I’d let Warbird overtake my sense of self shamed and alarmed me.   
  
I didn’t let it show, obviously. That wouldn’t be very well-adjusted of me. I kept the surface smooth enough, but I avoided my usual introspective habits. I did manage to content myself for a while. Rooming with Scott in Washington, working at the White House – I really had felt useful. Stable.   
  
Then Logan had come back from Vietnam. Two years he’d been gone, and his return on the morning of my twenty-second birthday had launched me into a state of pure joy. We’d hugged and he’d touched me the way only he could, skin to skin, and I’d cried and laughed and gone to work riding high. That feeling tricked me into believing I could be this happy every day, from now right on down to blessed eternity. I’d forgotten the rules of happiness dictate that, no matter how great my surroundings looked, I couldn’t really be happy if I didn’t like myself.


	2. Can't Buy Me Love

In glorious optimism-drenched self-denial, I murmur-hummed a semi-recognizable version of “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” to myself as I unlocked the door to my apartment. Inside, there was Logan, looking for the all world like he’d just been waiting for me to come home. My outrageously cheerful mood further brightened. 

“Hey,” he greeted. He was sprawled out on my living room couch, drink in hand, TV on ESPN. Curious, that his habits were so similar to Scott’s. 

“Hey yourself.” I tossed my keys and purse down on the counter by the door, which separated the kitchen area from the open living room. With a satisfied sigh, I slipped out of my low heels and suit jacket. I’d been waiting since this morning to again go gloveless in the carefree company of Logan. Off they went. 

My original impulse was to bounce right into the seat beside him and, I don’t know, start petting him or something, but a self-preserving hesitation kept me lingering by the door. I wasn’t so giddy I didn’t recognize the wisdom in treading lightly. The reality of the situation was not pleasant. Before Logan’s abrupt departure, both of us had made the admittedly hasty decision to sleep together. Only I’d stood by it. Logan had said he’d made a mistake.

But was an itty bitty little thing like Logan’s complete lack of cooperation going to keep us from our inevitable future of uninterrupted, life-long bliss? Pfft.

This was a battle of wills. To convince Logan that I was both well-adjusted and well-worth it, I was going to have to out-stubborn the master. No easy challenge, but I was determined. I was going to be poised, confidant, entertaining, and unobtrusive. I was going to be better than who I was; I was going to be everything I thought Logan wanted and nothing he didn’t. I was going to win, all right.

Unaware of my absurd plotting, Logan inquired, “So, how was work?” The question couldn’t have pleased me more. It set the perfect tone. Everyday casual, as if he’d sat on that same couch and asked me that same question a million times before.

“Excellent,” I chirped. “There was cake.” Going around the counter and into the kitchen, I added, “And Scott treated me to a really nice lunch.”

“Oh, yeah?” Unenthused, Logan asked, “When can we expect him?”

“Not until Sunday. He left right after his last appointment. He’s probably back at the School already.” I opened the refrigerator to see if Logan had finished off all my good beer. “The School feels strange now, doesn’t it? All the new buildings and the quad and everything. I guess it had to be done, though.”

“Definitely needed the space,” he responded in a tone of agreement, if not approval.

I spotted a lonely bottle of Molson tucked behind the untouched Corona. Lip twitched up, I noted, “Awfully courteous of you to save me one.”

“Didn’t think you’d miss ’em.” Logan turned his neck and shoulders to fix me with a look. “You got a hell of a lot of alcohol in there, kid.”

I laughed, using a bottle opener to pop off the top. “I haven’t turned into a lush, Logan. It’s for tonight.”

“Right. Bobby and…” – the rest of my friends’ names were waved off – “are coming up. Big plans?”

“The usual,” I shrugged, leaning on the edge of the counter. “We’ll drink a little here, meet a couple of my DC friends at the bars, come back, sleep it off. Oh, and they’ll give me my presents. They’re nice, so I know they won’t hold out on me.” 

With one booted toe, Logan nudged the pile of open presents in front of him on the coffee table: an artisan-made blanket from Storm, a comprehensive record of everything Dr. McCoy had ever known or theorized about my mutation, half a dozen novels from the Professor – ever the educator, he was personally seeing to it that I was more than well-read – and a whole bag full of goodies from Kurt. Logan’s present, however, was still hidden away in his black duffel bag, which he lifted to place on the cushion next to him. He toyed with the zipper.

“Tease,” I complained, loving the excuse to pout. Pouting was sexy, right?

“What I got you won’t even be here ’til next week, have some patience,” Logan smirked. Undeniably sexy.

“Ah-ha, a clue. Must be something from Japan.”

He toasted my deductive reasoning skills with his Molson.

Striking a pondering pose, I queried, “If I guessed, would you tell – ” 

The words “Mutant Registration Act,” coming from the TV, elicited my sudden and complete attention. Around the Horn wasn’t exactly known for its political commentary. 

“…has created a ripple effect that’s stirring up even the sports world. Patriots managing staff under fire this week after benching number three draft pick, running back Steve Rohl, at last Sunday’s opening game, citing injury and poor practice performance. Rohl himself has yet to release a statement, prompting many to wonder if reports of Rohl’s mutant status are really behind New England’s sudden disdain for the former up-and-comer. Politics mudding the waters at Gillette Stadium?” the host inquired of his sportswriter panelists. “Buy or sell? Fusco.”

“I gotta sell this. Allegedly, Rohl’s mutation or ‘power,’ whatever you want to call it, is changing the properties of liquids. Water to Gatorade to chocolate milk – Who cares? Guy’s a walking vending machine, not a threat to anyone’s political agenda. Guy didn’t live up to expectations in training camp, so he didn’t start. End of story.”

“All right, Booker Allen.”

“I’m not only buying it, I’m approving it. It’s about time somebody took a stand on mutant athletes. You get a guy, a mutant, who’s like The Flash out there on that field and where’s fair? PC-types like it or not, the mutant gene is a steroid and the MRA is the best drug test we got for it. The purity of the game is at stake, here. I’m not saying – ” Boyd’s grating voice rose over the exasperated noises of his fellow panelists. “Costa – Costa, can I finish?”

“Say your piece,” the host allowed, making simmer down motions.

“I’m not saying Rohl should be kicked out of the NFL. From what Fusco said, sounds to me like he’d make a phenomenal water boy.”

Costa gave Allen and his one-sided laughter the ten-second mute, taking away one point from his score. “Anything for a joke. Bad form, old man. Webber, you’re up.”

Webber, who’d booed Allen, shook his head. “I’m buying the conspiracy theory, but disagreeing with everything else that came out of Booker’s fool mouth, as usual. The mutant gene is a steroid? Come on. What kind of comparison is that? It occurs naturally in the body; it’s not a foreign element. The Patriots’ owners are giving into pressure from people who use words like ‘purity’ to talk about keeping otherwise faultless athletes like Rohl from doing their jobs. Let him play.” 

“Cobbes?”

“Look, I don’t like this any more than Webber does, but I can’t sidestep the issue like Fusco. I have to agree with Allen on this one. I’m buying the response to Rohl as the first sign of no tolerance to mutants in professional sports. What I don’t buy is the idea that New England’s owners are thinking politically. They’re thinking in practical business terms. Athletes are commodities, they’re not sideshow acts. Nobody wants to see one guy running a million circles around everybody else. That would throw off the entire game. Football’s an institution. Nobody wants to see it changed. Unless we can find a way to make sure they’re not using their naturally unfair advantages, mutant athletes are just going to have find themselves another venue.”

Allen cracked, “They can try the X-Games.”

With a low, disgusted growl, Logan flipped channels. 

“You won’t get better survey of differing opinions on mutants,” I mused before taking a very long drink.

“Can’t believe that bullshit. Mutant Registration Act. Keeping that from getting passed was supposed to be the goddamned be all and end all, wasn’t it? Bullshit,” he repeated bitterly.

I was glad I could only see the back of his head. No way I could have looked him in the eye just then. The Registration Act had passed because people had died. They’d died because the Jr. X-Men had only partially saved the day. Had Logan, Storm, and Scott been the ones handling the situation…Well, along with the reversal of countless other evils, Logan would have one less thing to bitch about.

As it was, I leaned over the counter and fished my wallet out of my purse. Taking out my MR Card, I went over to stand behind the him, elbows rested on the back of the couch. “It’s just an ID. See?” I handed the card to him so he could take a closer look. “The only thing that matters is making sure the information isn’t misused. That’s what we fight for now. That’s actually why Scott’s at the School. He arranged this really important meeting – The ACLU and the National Council for Mutant Affairs sitting down with Congresswoman Reis-Steeves and Professor Xavier to discuss the MRA and the midterm elections. Could be a huge step for us.”

Logan bent my MR Card slightly between his thumb and forefinger. “Ten steps back, one step forward,” he muttered.

“You’re not suggesting we give up?” It wasn’t really a question. More a challenge.

He glanced up at my resolute expression, and his softened. “’Course not. You’re doing right.” Eyes back on my MR Card, he ran his blunt thumbnail under my name. “‘Rogue M. D’Ancanto.’ M for Marie.”

There was a lot of satisfaction packed into my smile. He’d remembered my old name, the name I’d told him only once, nearly five years ago, for no good reason, except that I’d wanted to sass him. “Yep. I had it legally changed. There’s a common usage clause for mutants, makes it really simple to do. Hardly any paperwork.”

“What was it before?”

“M. for Marie. My full name is Anna Marie, but my momma was Annie and my grandmomma was Anna, so I was Marie.” 

He flickered a sidelong look my way. Whatever he might have said was forgotten when he noticed, “‘Class 4?’ The hell does that mean?”

Sarcastically, I drawled, “Means I’m dangerous.”

“So dangerous they got you working for the President? Saving his life?”

Oh, he’d heard about that? I couldn’t help preening, just a little. “Well, that’s not something I do every day.”

“What is it you do every day?”

“Mm, exciting things.” I leaned in closer and lowered my voice conspiratorially. “You know those super secret documents only the highest ups get to see?”

“Yeah?”

“I put those on President McKenna’s desk.”

The glint in his eyes told me he was willing to play along. “Really?” 

“Honest to God truth. And during conferences, the big important ones, sometimes I wait outside and play Tetris on my cell phone.”

“Get out.”

“Impressive, I know.” 

As I formed the ‘o’ sound with my lips, our faces so close together, I didn’t want to think of any battle of wills. I wanted to think only of kissing Logan without fear, for as long and as hard as I could. 

Resisting took extraordinary grit. Timing was essential to my strategy. Tomorrow, I’d kiss him. Then I figured I’d just have to wait a day or two while he hemmed and hawed and moralized before I could ultimately declare myself victorious. There was a la-di-da to do fundraiser for Congresswoman Reis-Steeves next week. By then, I told myself, I was sure he’d be my date –official, forever and ever, practically married.

I should’ve known not to lay a trap for Logan. He’ll spot your trap at fifty paces, and when he’s through disarming it, you’re next.


	3. Don't Be Cruel

Yep, I definitely should have known better. Whenever I had tried to uncomplicated things for the sake of convenience and expediency in the past, they always blew up in my face. But what can I say? My learning curve had flat-lined at the sight of Logan’s warm, tan, hallelujah-touchable skin. 

Swallowing a Cheshire grin, I plucked my MR Card from his fingers and retreated to the safety of the kitchen. In a more normal voice, I continued explaining, “Really, I’m not even officially working at the White House. They bounce me between the Secret Service, who don’t trust me, and the Office of Presidential Personnel, who abuse me like an intern. To be perfectly honest, nothing I do couldn’t be done by someone already working there. Even saving President McKenna, my one shiny moment, I’m fairly certain could’ve been handled without me.”

Brow furrowed, Logan watched me put my MR Card back into my purse. “If it’s so meaningless to you, why bother?”

“I don’t think it’s meaningless. Sadly, far as day-to-day access to the President goes, there definitely aren’t very many mutants out there who have higher-ranking positions than mine. Plus, I’m not just any mutant, I’m an X-Man. Currently, the only one with a name and a face.” Grandly, I spread my hands. “I have acquired symbolic meaning.”

Logan gave me his head-tilt, lip-quirk of wry approval. “Come and get your present, kid.” 

“Yay. Don’t mind if I do.” Plucking up my beer, I went around to his side of the couch. The coffee table was so close, I ended up standing between his knees, more or less.

He didn’t comment on my closeness. From his bag, he took out a slim, white envelope. He exchanged it for my beer. 

Smile at full wattage, I tore the envelope open. Instead of the card I’d expected there was a folded piece of paper. I pulled it open and didn’t have to read very far before I knew exactly what was being shipped to me from Japan.

“Wha…Gah…” Unable to express the whole of my gratitude in words, I opted for strangled monosyllables. I soon gave up all dignity and resorted to jumping up and down in front of him like he was Bob Barker and I’d just won The Price is Right. Logan followed my bouncing with his eyes. I got the heady sensation he wasn’t exactly concentrating on my face.

He’d bought me a motorcycle. A Suzuki GSX-R750, mostly black with green and white stripes. I gaped at the printed-out picture. He usually just snuck me out for beers, for God’s sake. I lowered the paper, so I could focus my gape on his face.

Logan scratched the back of his neck. “Well, I figured, since I taught you to ride, you should have one,” he explained, as if that was reason enough to spend literally thousands of dollars on me.

“Shit, Logan. By your logic, Storm should’ve gotten me a jet. But thank you,” I said, everything my grandmomma’d taught me about manners packed into those last two words.

With a satisfied smirk, he handed me back my beer. “You’re welcome, kid.”

I sank into the cushion beside Logan contentedly, my back pressed against his elbow. Taking the hint, he raised his arm around my shoulders and I scooted against his side. I grinned happily at him, thinking genuinely, Everything’s going so well.

Smirk still in place, he took the last swig of his beer. His eyes strayed back to the TV, but I didn’t mind. This was like old times; he got peace, I got proximity. Plus, I got a chance to study him closely and at least semi-surreptitiously. There was a definite pinch to the corners of his eyes. He was exhausted and seemed to be holding himself with a certain amount of tension. 

The past two years had been rough on him, he’d said as much in the message I still had saved on the answering machine. He’d also said the things he’d found out about his past, they weren’t pretty. “But I guess we never thought they would be,” he’d added. His use of we – meaning you and I, him and me – made my chest tighten every time I thought of it. We. He’d included me into his thought process, which gave me a place in his past, if only by way of the future.

“So, when’re you free tomorrow?” Logan inquired.

“Bobby and Jubilee and everyone have to leave in the morning, because they have, I don’t know, tests to study for and papers to write, I guess.” I snorted, remembering those days well. Suckers. Flashing him a grin, I clarified, “So I’m all yours until Monday morning.”

“Okay.” Not exactly an enthusiastic response. More apprehensive. “We can talk tomorrow, then.”

I bit back my grin and attempted to catch his eye. “Sure, if you want to. Definitely.”

Voice clipped, he replied, “Good.”

Lifting my wrist , I lightly brushed the pads of my fingertips along the dips between his knuckles. I meant it as a reassuring gesture, but his skin felt so wonderfully smooth and dry against mine I couldn’t help turning the motion into a caress. His whole hand flinched before stiffing into a poor semblance of relaxation. Evidently, he was willing to let me touch him, but not willing to let himself enjoy it. My fingertips fell away.

Attention focused on balancing my beer bottle on my knee, I said, “We can talk a little now, if you want.” Before he could flinch again, I hurriedly added, “I mean, if you’d rather talk about…what you found out…tomorrow, that’s your call, but you could give me at least some idea of what you were doing.” Looking up at him, I tried to keep the hurt out of my voice when I pointed out softly, “Two years is a long time, Logan.”

“You want to talk about Vietnam.” He said it like the thought hadn’t occurred to him.

“Well, don’t you? Your message said…”

“Oh, right. We can talk about that, too, if you want. But I was just gonna let you read my file when your computer friend gets it decrypted.”

“You mean Kitty?”

“Kitty,” he agreed.

The prospect of sitting in front of an impersonal computer screen and clicking my way through his past was not the least bit appealing. In quiet earnest, I said, “I’d rather you told me yourself.”

He shrugged, lifting his arm from around my shoulders in the same movement. “Figured it’d save some time if you just knew everything I’d done.”

I scooted sideways so I could see his face better. “Logan, that’s never mattered to me. All I care about is how it affects you now.”

“Still.” He crossed his arms over his chest, not quite looking at me. “It’s only fair. I read yours.”

For a second, I thought that he meant Stryker had had a file on me, too, but his line of sight directed me to the large binder of medical records Dr. McCoy had given me, along with a note reading, “The greatest gift is the gift of knowledge.” 

I’d flipped through the binder that morning before going to work, unable to bring myself to read more than a line here and there. As far as I could tell, every visit to the med lab I’d made since the day I’d set foot in the School was accounted meticulously, sometimes to the point of what looked like full transcription. Dr. McCoy had included charts and graphs, analysis, interviews with Logan, the Professor…The thoroughness of the thing unsettled me. I could imagine how painfully detailed the records of the Warbird incident had to be; my intentionally selective memory would be fully supplemented by Dr. McCoy’s close observations and the Professor’s all-knowingness. 

Shame and anxiety and pride leapt into my throat. Swallowing, I managed, “You didn’t have my permission to look at that.”

Logan shrugged again, unconvincingly this time. “I didn’t think you’d mind.”

“Liar.”

There was anger in his eyes as they snapped onto mine. He kept his tone carefully in check, saying, “Two years is a long time, I agree. The Professor told me some of what you did, I was just playing catch-up.”

“What I did,” I echoed, bitterness getting the best of me. Not what had happened to me, what I’d done. Who I’d become – a murderer, a traitor, a sociopath – because of what I’d done. “Thanks for the compassion, Logan. You’re a real friend.”

“Rogue, don’t get self-righteous on me, you know I didn’t mean it like that. Look, maybe I shouldn’t have read your files, fine. I’m sorry. But I had to know everything before I could help you.”

“There are so many things wrong with that sentiment. First off, you didn’t even bother to ask me. Second, I don’t know what you know. I haven’t read any of that yet, I don’t know what’s in there. I don’t even know what the Professor told you. God, Logan, I don’t talk about you with the Professor behind your back. Third – Help me? You’re a day late and a dollar short, bub. I’m fine. I’ve been fine for months. And even if you had been there, what would you have been able to do for me? Nothing. It was my problem, I handled it, the end.”

“Liar.” His tone held disappointment, not incrimination.

I focused my burning eyes on the where the edge of the living room rug met wood flooring. “No. As far you’re concerned…The end.”

We were both silent for a long time. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me. I’d known he’d find out about Warbird. I’d even been prepared to deliver a nice little speech about how hard it had been, how much I regretted what had happened. Something so eloquent and heartbreaking that I’d come off guiltless as a saint and the subject would be dropped forever.

And, damn it, how fucking artificial could I possibly make myself? My anger turned inward and cold, winding my insides so tight I was left shaky. Pitifully, I finally asked, “What do you want from me?”

“I want – I want you to give me a chance. I know what you’re going through. I’ve had people fuck with my head, too. So give me a chance. You haven’t talked to me since – Okay, it’s your life. I get that. I’m not gonna try to tell you what to do, but this…I can help.”

“I’m sorry. It’s just – You know, I really do not want to talk about any of this. I’m being completely honest, okay? I don’t feel like I need to, so, please, can you just take what you know and…forget it?”

“Rogue, I think you’re still confusing being honest with being right.”

Wondering what he meant by that, I turned my watery gaze on him. 

Logan’s eyes reflected the worst kind of hurt. I’d only seen that expression twice before; once, the morning after, when I’d accused him of breaking his promise to take care of me, and, the first time, when I’d walked out on him after he’d tried to give me advice I hadn’t wanted to hear. Now, I realized, I’d done again. Something I’d said – everything I’d said – I’d dismissed his opinion completely and cut him down.

I marveled at my own selfishness. “You know, I like to tell people you’re my best friend, but what does that even mean? We hardly ever talk about anything real, and when we do we fight. I have you in my head and you’ve saved my life so many times, but what’ve I ever done but give you grief and generally annoy you?”

“Don’t be like that, Rogue. You know just you needing me has done more for me than – ”

“Yeah, but I hate it. I absolutely hate needing you. Doesn’t that negate it somehow? Holy shit. And here I was, thinking that we could – Do you ever think about that night at all?”

“Christ.” He obviously hadn’t expected me to be that direct, and, really, neither had I. “Yeah, I think about it.”

“And?” 

“And I remember you – ” He stopped himself, lips compressed into a tight line.

“What? You remember me what?”

“I remember you had your eyes closed. The whole time, your eyes were closed.”

I started to say, “That’s not true,” but trailed off, realizing that I couldn’t remember if it was or wasn’t. I started to laugh. Not a pleasant sound, even to my own ears, but it was the only release I had, so ignored Logan’s look of concern. When my cell phone began ringing in my purse, I laughed on my to answering it.

“What’s up, dude?” I greeted chirpily, knowing by the ringtone that it was Keller.

“Happy motherfucking birthday, gorgeous,” Keller responded. In the background, I could hear Jubilee, Peter, Bobby, and Kitty echoing his birthday wishes. 

“Aw, thanks, guys.” Lowering the phone, I said, “Logan, I’ll be right back.” Breezy as can be, as if we’d just been discussing hockey scores or hypothesizing about why in the hell Mel Gibson felt the need to engage the bad guy in a homoerotic, shirtless mud-wresting contest at the end of Lethal Weapon – our usual brand of profound conversation. Frustrated at myself, I shut my bedroom door a little harder than necessary.

Keller didn’t notice. Enthusiastically he said, “Big two-two. How’s it fucking feel?” 

“Feels fucking wonderful.”

“Fan-fucking-tastic. Well, we’re on our way. We should be there in an hour and half, but Bobby’s driving, so it’ll probably be more like three.”

Distantly, I heard Bobby return, “Oh, haha.”

Apparently close to the phone, Jubilee said clearly, “We’ll be there asap, chica. We’ve got a lot of drinking to do to make up for twenty-one in a coma.”

“For sure,” I laughed. Her references to the Warbird incident – any aspect of it – were fine by me. They turned the whole thing into a joke.

“Yeah, Rogue, listen,” Keller continued. “Cyclops gave us the number of a pizza place around you, so we’ll pick that up on our way. He said you already had alcohol at your apartment, but, at the bars, we’ve got the tab. You and me, we’ll go SoCo shot for shot, and then we’ll see how much vodka we can pour down the throat of this Russian bastard before he breaks out into his stunning rendition of ‘If I Were Rich Man’ again. I’ll never get tired of that accent.”

I might have been hearing things, but I thought that Peter’s, “Fuck off, Abdel-Haq,” sounded much less genial than it might normally have. To me, it didn’t sound like he was quite as over the break-up as Jubilee seemed to think.

“The game plan, doll-face, is for you to have a drink in hand all night. I’m going to personally make fucking sure of it.”

“Keller, that is the best game plan I have ever heard in my entire twenty-two years of living. Hurry your asses down here.”

I had just closed the phone when there was a knock at my bedroom door. Plastering a smile onto my face, I opened it for Logan. “Yep?”

“I’m gonna go,” he said, without prelude.

“Don’t,” I practically yelped.

“Just out for a while, kid,” he clarified. “I’ll be back.”

My heart pounded back into motion. “Oh, um, then I guess you should take the spare key. It’s in the bowl of change by the door.”

“Okay. You have a good time tonight, Rogue.”

“Thanks. You, too, Logan.”

This was a natural time for a hug, but we were being so forcedly polite with each other, I shifted back a step instead.

Logan cleared his throat. “Well. See ya.” And then he was across the living room, picking up his jacket; he was by the bar, adding the spare key to his key ring; he was out the door, asking himself why he even gave me the time of day. 

Well, I couldn’t actually speak for him on that account, but I knew I sure was.


	4. Chapter 4

Wondering how Logan must see me was depressingly paralyzing. It was too big, and I knew too much, most of it conflicting, some of it damning, and a lot of it buried deep. I was on the edge of a cliff, here. If I started reevaluating how things between Logan and I had gotten this way, I’d fall.   
  
I needed cheering up. Logan had told me to have a good time tonight, right? That was a get-out-of-guilt-free card if I’d ever received one. Taking my cell with me, I sat back down on the living room couch. From a white gift bag, I took out a velvet box. Inside, there was a small, very basic, silver cross. I clasped the thin chain around my neck, adjusting it with one hand as I scrolled down my contact list looking for Kurt’s number.   
  
It rang just twice before his comforting voice answered, “Hallo?”  
  
Instantly all grins, I responded, “Hi, Kurt.”  
  
“Anna Marie, Alles Gute zum Geburtstag. I was just thinking about you, you know. I wondered, how has your birthday been?”  
  
“It’s been great. Thank you so much for your presents. I love the book of Rilke poems, and I’m wearing the necklace right now.”  
  
“Oh gut, you like it?”  
  
“Sehr viel.”  
  
“Wunderbar. You sound so happy. I knew you would be. Your friend has returned.”  
  
“Yeah. It’s good to have him back.” I added, “It’s really good,” because I’d forgotten until just now how relieved I’d been this morning. I finally knew that Logan was safe, and that was something to be infinitely grateful for, even if he wasn’t exactly pleased with the way I’d dealt with things in his absence.  
  
I didn’t realize how long I’d been silent until Kurt said tentatively, “You have not seen each other in a long time. You both are different now, perhaps?”  
  
“A little.” I nearly told him about our fight, but I didn’t care to open those floodgates, not when I had just over an hour to kill before Keller and Jubilee and everyone would be there to enable my denial. Instead I assured him, “I’m trying really hard not to seem different, though.”  
  
“You will seem as you are. You cannot hide that, not from someone who knows you so well. Trying would feel dishonest, ja?”  
  
“I guess it would.” To myself I amended, Except that I’m really fucking great at being disingenuous.  
  
“You be you,” Kurt continued. “You he loves. How could he not?”  
  
My chest tightened with affection. “I love you, Kurt.”  
  
“Natürlich. How could you not?” he teased. There was some background noise. “One moment, bitte.” Holding the phone closer to my ear, I managed to place Storm’s low voice. After a second, Kurt said, “I am sorry, I must go now. I have made dinner plans.”   
  
Tone overly casual, I asked, “Oh? With Storm? Anything…special?”  
  
“How do you mean?” Poor Kurt sounded puzzled.  
  
“Never mind. Tell her I said thank you for the blanket. It’s beautiful.”  
  
“I will pass on your thanks.”  
  
“All right. Bye, Kurt. Have a great time.” If he’d been any of my other friends, I might have supplemented, “Seriously, you two should probably just get hammered and go at it already,” but he was Kurt and she was Storm, both veritably cloistered, so I said nothing of the kind. I merely amused myself with the idea.   
  
“Gleichfalls. Biss bahlt, Mein Lamm.”  
  
My lamb. I bit back sudden, bitter laughter as I snapped closed my phone. He’d been calling me that almost as long as I’d known him, but I wasn’t so docile and innocent now, was I? I was, again, a murderer and a traitor and a sociopath, a would-be rapist, and, to top it all off, a bad friend.   
  
Movements slow and dense, I went back into my room. To stave off the angst, I did that terrific, terrible thing I can do. I pushed all potentially painful thoughts away from my consciousness by restricting my myself to surface-level thinking.   
  
That required music, so I flipped on my laptop. Singing along to Elvis, I changed into suitable bar-hopping attire – a clingy long-sleeved black top and the most expensive, risqué pair of jeans I owned, due on both counts to the so-advertised designer holes and fringe. By the time I was redressed, “A Little Less Conversation” had changed to The Beatles’ “Help!” and, after a few bars, I clicked to the next song. Sometimes iTunes shuffle had far too insightful a sense of humor for my liking.   
  
I was mindlessly creating a new playlist when my doorbell rang. “Just a second,” I called out, hurrying to slip on the pair of gloves I had laid out while I walked.  
  
“Don’t bother, I got it,” came Keller’s muffled reply. There was clicking noise and the door opened wide. Keller came through the door, four pizza boxes hovering beside his head. Kitty and Jubilee ducked under them, teetering on high heels as they tottered toward me. They grabbed me in a hug, their faces awkwardly tilted away from mine.   
  
“Where’s the sex?” Jubilee wanted to know, leering over my shoulder as if Logan was due at any moment for a naked stroll out of my bedroom.  
  
“He went out, but he’ll be back. Hey, Bobby,” I disengaged from Jubilee and Kitty so I could lean over to give him a hug. I felt a light pat on my back and turned around to smile at Peter. “Thanks for coming.”  
  
“Wouldn’t have missed it,” he replied, a nice attempt at enthusiasm. I felt like giving Jubilee a quick kick to the shin for breaking the poor guy’s heart, but I figured I had no room to judge. However callous she’d been to Peter, it was nothing compared to how I’d been to Logan.  
  
From the kitchen, Keller called, “Rogue, first mixed drink of the night. What’ll it be?”  
  
“Um, rum and Coke. No, Sprite and vodka.”  
  
“Both it is,” Keller replied.  
  
“Bring ’em on. I can drink faster than you can pour,” I challenged.  
  
I had a nice buzz going before we’d even finished pizza. Thanks to Logan’s healing factor I really had to make an effort to get shit-faced, so I kept downing whatever Keller handed me and remained gleefully tipsy as we went from my apartment to the first bar to the next and so on. For once, I allowed myself to act less than my age. It felt good. Too good, because I opened my mouth and started talking.   
  
First to Jubilee in the ladies room. She was updating me on the Peter and Keller situation while we took turns peeing in the stall. “So, you know, we’ve been doing the partner-switching thing for this side of forever, right? And now Peter chooses to get all clingy about it? Nuh-uh. We had a good thing going, and he screwed it up. But you want to know the really fucked up thing?” she asked, pulling up her thong.   
  
“I should wear thongs,” I said, head lolled against the decidedly unhygienic door.   
  
“Peter only wants to a commitment out of me because Kitty and Bobby are getting engaged, and he’s full-on in denial-love with dear little Kit-Kat – who, not to be gross, but, seriously, he would break in half.”  
  
I chose not to dwell on the imagery. “Bobby and Kitty are engaged?”  
  
She shooed me out of the stall door and I pushed my way to the crowded sinks with my uncovered hands well above my head.   
  
“Nearly,” Jubilee replied, pumping out soap. “She’s picking out rings, he’s trying to pretend that he’s not outrageously psyched to be Mr. Susie Homemaker. Boring! Myself, I don’t want comfortable. I want all-consuming passion, even if I have to love ’em and leave ’em.”  
  
“Preach it, sister,” a girl with hair the color of my bangs testified.   
  
“Woo to third-wave feminism and all,” I said, scrubbing my hands harder than was necessary, “But I, if you remember, have a condition.”  
  
“What you have is baggage,” was Jubilee’s snorted reply. “I bet you had abstinence-only education down there in Mississippi, and I further bet that you were one out of maybe fifteen people in the entire United States that it actually worked on. Your first kiss was, what, when you were sixteen?”  
  
“Almost seventeen, and that turned out real well,” I drawled, drying my hands on the seat of my jeans since the contents of the paper towel dispenser was currently trampled under a never-ending swarm of stiletto heels.  
  
“Exactly, chica. I mean, fuck’s sake, you’ve clearly got issues with your sexuality.”  
  
I jammed my hands into my gloves significantly.   
  
“I call bullshit. You could have sex if you wanted and you damn sure could invest in some quality stress-releasers. But you’re so hooked on this fantasy, this myth that sex is something more than people rubbing against each other with varying amounts of affection to varying degrees of satisfaction.”  
  
Not anymore. The myth was dead. Stone-faced, I blurted, “When I had sex with Logan my eyes were closed the whole time, and I didn’t even realize it.”  
  
Strangely enough, Jubilee’s reaction mirrored my own. She burst out laughing. Slammed her hand against the wall. Howled. Then sobered up enough to take me by the shoulders and give me a good shake. “Oh, Rogue. That is beyond a shadow of a doubt the absolute saddest thing I have ever heard.”  
  
About the long and the short of it. Happy birthday to me. “I need more to drink.”   
  
Jubilee followed me closely out the door, patting my back sympathetically.   
  
She put Keller on cheer-up duty, which resulted in an obscene amount of shots in very few minutes. My friends from work, Ellie, Stephanie, and Kyle, wished me a forgiving hangover and dropped out about one o’clock. Keller and I ended up splitting a bottle’s worth of Jäger at the bar.   
  
“I am a horrible person,” I announced at the end of it, my head chin cradled on both my hands.  
  
“You? No,” Keller slurred. “You’re lovely. You’re my friend.”  
  
“I’m a horrible friend, you don’t even know. Listen – listen to this.” I shushed him even though he wasn’t talking. “Listen. All I want to do is have sex with Logan, and all he wants to do is share feelings.”  
  
Keller about fell off his stool. Goody that my pathetic love life was the cause for so much high comedy. When he was finally able to right himself, Keller could only shake his head. “Two years in the jungle with a couple of butcher-than-thou lesbians and even the mostly manly of men will come out the other end sans sex drive. Duly noted.”  
  
“I don’t think it was the lesbians. I think it was me. I think I’m, like, the anti-aphrodisiac. I’m the person – you know when you’re supposed to think of someone hideous, like Margaret Thatcher in a string bikini – that’s me. I’m the killer of erections. Men, guard your penises.”  
  
“Objection,” he said, hitting his fist like a gavel. “You’re swinging ass and titties. I’ll have sex with you right here. Right now. Bye-bye V-Card.”  
  
“I’m not a virgin. I had sex with Logan once already and, apparently, it sucked for him.”  
  
“Get the fuck out of town. How did I not know that? When was it?”  
  
“Years ago.”  
  
“Mm, Wolverine’s a cradle robber.”  
  
“The cradle wasn’t particularly well-guarded in this case.”  
  
“So more like he was rocking the cradle of love?”  
  
I would’ve rolled my eyes, but I was feeling too dizzy. “Thank you, Billy Idol.”  
  
“Tell me one thing. Was it a gentle rocking, or are we talking shaken baby syndrome?”  
  
I tried to smack him but was stopped by his telekinesis.  
  
“Easy, Birdie. Violence.”  
  
“You’re disgusting.”  
  
“I’m just saying. There’s a delicate moral balance here.”  
  
“Don’t lecture me about morality, you slut.”  
  
“Says the lady of easy virtue.”  
  
I considered that longer and harder than Keller could’ve have intended. Easy virtue, indeed. Not in the sexual sense. I knew virginity was no indicator of goodness. Rather, what I saw in myself was an fatal design flaw. When it came right down to it, wasn’t I was only as virtuous as the last person I touched? Did it really matter what I thought or who I wanted to be when I could be summarily erased at any given moment?  
  
Slumped over the bar, I only vaguely noted Keller getting up to intervene in an argument between Jubilee and Peter. Bobby acted as mediator between the boys, while Kitty guided a green-looking Jubilee to the bathroom.  
  
Fucked up beyond all repair, every last one of us. And the funny thing was, we were supposed to have better and more important things on our minds. We were supposed to be goddamn superheroes.   
  
Grimly, I tossed back another Jägerbomb as a toast to the sanity-decimating powers of the love triangle. How the hell had we all gotten caught up in them? From day one it there was unspoken tension between Bobby, me, and John, a kid’s table parallel of Scott, Jean, and Logan. Now that Peter-Jubilee-Keller was coming to a head, and you could just bet that Bobby-Kitty-Peter would be next.   
  
I was in a triangle right now. Logan, me, and false expectations.  
  
Overwhelmingly tired in spite of the Red Bull, I pulled out my phone. I was thinking about a warm taxi driving me to my warm bed, but, predictably, I pressed 1 on my contacts and wondered if Logan bothered to keep his old emergency cell phone on him.  
  
He answered on the second ring, sounding like I’d jerked him out of sleep. “You all right, kid?”   
  
“Yeah, sorry. I just – ” After two years, it was a kind of miracle to actually be able to get into touch with him so easily. I found I couldn’t articulate myself. “Don’t worry, this is not a rescue situation.”  
  
“But you need something?” There was a hopeful note to Logan’s voice that I grasped onto.  
  
“If you don’t mind. I need – I need to talk.”  
  
There was a long silence. Then, “Where?”  
  
Tears of relief sprang to my eyes. “It can wait until tomorrow. I wanted to make sure, you know, you were still willing.”  
  
“Anything you need. You should know that.”  
  
I had to laugh a little as I hid my face in my palm. “I really don’t know why you bother,” I replied, asking for forgiveness through humility. “I’m a hot mess with delusions of mental stability.”  
  
“Good thing I know a something about that,” he said.  
  
Logan had been back for less than twenty-four hours and that was the second voluntary comparison he’d made between us. I could make others. Isolated. Self-consumed. Aged by forgotten and false histories.   
  
I was suddenly struck by the idea that, from the beginning, we were strangers who loved each other better than ourselves for no other reason than recognition. We’d exchanged sidelong glances and known, instantly, who the other was because we were the same. Mutants with no place to call home and no one to miss us when we were gone.   
  
People and powers and politics had complicated us, but that foundation was still there. Our belief in it was mutual and unshakable.   
  
“Kid?”  
  
I broke out into a smile. “I was just remembering why I love you so much. I’ll be home soon,” I added, before he had time to respond. “Goodnight, Logan.”  
  
“See you tomorrow.” And then, somehow better than “I love you,” he said, “Marie.”


	5. An American Trilogy

I woke up that next morning still thinking about Logan, and how well I really knew him versus how well I should know him by now, and how many times I’d thought I’d gotten realistic only to fall back into denial.   
  
Cocooned in a tight ball under my covers and not wanting to peek out from the warmth, I conceded that this was pretty much how I lived my life. Comfortable and contained. Untouchable. Alone, even if the dip in the mattress and the snoring told me that Peter of all people had crashed on my bed.  
  
With my comforter wrapped securely me like a tent, I waddled into the hall bathroom. Standing in front of the mirror, I dropped my covering symbolically.   
  
The metamorphosis was unspectacular.   
  
I looked not so much wizened by experience than tired and unkempt. Sighing at my reflection, I got into the shower. Where had I picked up the notion that change was instantaneous?   
  
People change, I thought. Forwards and backwards and sideways. Moreover, they’re not consistent. Every single person I had ever known had surprised me at some point, either by doing something incredible or acting out of character. I knew that. Yet I was guilty of assuming that the people around me would always match up with the idea I’d created of them. Change is the only constant. There was no such thing as a static human being. If someone seemed that way – if I thought Logan was that way – it was only because I’d failed to notice their dynamics.   
  
I lectured myself, One-dimensional caricatures make for fine acquaintances, but true friends should always be three-dimensionally real. They’re so much more fascinating that way. Real people have intricacies and secrets and are constantly evolving right before my eyes.   
  
Logan – who I thought of as a rock, who I thought I understood because I had snapshots of him, a photo album of conflicting thoughts and memories collecting dust in my head – had changed more than anyone I knew. He came into my life completely out of left field. I never could have predicted that some guy I happened to see cage fighting in a backwoods Canadian bar would turn out to be so irreplaceable in my life.   
  
Honestly, the first things I’d noticed about Logan were that he was extremely violent and extremely hot. I’d stood in awe of both those things, but I didn’t thought to myself, Gee, I bet that he’s really caring and noble on the inside. No. It was more like, Oh my God, he’s kicking that guy’s ass, and, Damn, look at those muscles. I hitched a ride with him because he’d seen through me. Because of that, I was much less afraid of him than I was of being left alone with a bunch of gun-toting, anti-mutant bigots.   
  
Lo and behold, he turned out to be a nice guy. Rather brusque, but he fed me so I decided to overlook that little flaw. Really, I was prepared to forgive him all sorts of things. It had been some time since I’d come across any other mutant, let alone one who was older than I was. Logan was obviously strong and, despite my brave front, I wasn’t. I figured that if I could get him to like me, he’d let me borrow a little of that strength. Maybe even let me tag along for a while. Had Sabretooth not attacked and Scott and Storm not taken us back to the school, would he have gotten rid of me at the next town? I never used to think so, but now I thought he would have. The Logan who grudgingly gave me a lift wasn’t the same Logan who tried to die for me on the top of the Statue of Liberty.   
  
Two days, and he’d changed. Suddenly, we were in this whole new world of superheroes and villains, and our vague relationship as driver and hitchhiker transformed into a friendship based on mutual understanding and loyalty. Fierce loyalty. As far as I know, he never even questioned it. I brought out his intrinsic protective streak and he made me feel wanted. Everything between us developed from there. Our foundation.  
  
The fact that four and half years later things between us were still in development was not something I should be resentful about. I figured that’s just how relationships work. There’s no pause button and there’s no fast-forwarding to the good parts.   
  
I learned that one the hard way, I thought, because I hadn’t been able to fast-forward these past two years. But shouldn’t this be the good part already? Maybe it was past due. Or maybe I didn’t deserve it.  
  
In the time we were apart, we’d both changed. Logan had finally gotten the answers to some of the questions that had been agitating him for two straight decades, and the knowing had aged him significantly. As for me, at twenty-two, I had two jobs and my own apartment. I was as much of an adult as I ever had been or could imagine myself being, although I knew there was nothing in front of me but a endless change. It was exhausting to think about how far I’d come since eighteen. I could only imagine what I’d think of my past selves at forty.  
  
I knew how I felt about myself at twenty: betrayed. I’d truly thought Logan had done me wrong, that I was a victim of some frustrating mix of a hero complex and an age discrimination, and that my forgiveness was a sign of maturity. Not so. Truth was, I’d done him wrong and been all the blinder for it.  
  
The one thing Logan remembered about sleeping with me was that my eyes had been closed. I could picture how I must have seemed to him. Even while touching him, responding to him, I’d been self-contained. In trying so hard to preserve the experience, I’d taken everything he had and given back nothing of myself. And, not only had I not realized what I’d done, it was last thing I’d wanted for either of us.  
  
Yesterday morning I’d felt so close to him, caught up in a hug so all-consuming my feet had left the floor, literally feeling his feelings with him…That side-effect was so sporadic, it’d only happened, what, three times? Was it possible to control? Dr. McCoy might have written something about in my file.   
  
Even now I didn’t want to read it.   
  
So I resolved to do so. I put the binder in my messenger bag when I went for brunch with the gang. When they were on their way, I went to the National Mall sat down and opened the first page.  
  
Charts and graphs. Statistics. There were notes, too, but all of them tempered by Dr. McCoy’s grand sense of acceptance and generosity. During the trial period between eighteen to twenty when we worked the most closely together, he referred to me as exceptionally patient and accepting. During the Warbird period, he actually called me brave.  
  
I was crying by the last page. I’d been so afraid of this file as Truth, but was a lie. Saint Rogue, mired in tragedy and but strong to the core. Bullshit. I wasn’t like that – maybe I seemed that way to Dr. McCoy or maybe he was just trying to be kind. What a sad, unintentionally cruel joke. “Knowledge is Power” my ass. This wasn’t science. This was a whitewashing of history.  
  
Gripping the binder in my hands, I could have broken it in half. I was so angry at it. It was supposed to have been a grail, holy in writ. But it was just another misrepresentation, more slant interpretation. After all that angst, the damn thing didn’t even have any power over me. And I was angry because of it. How perverse.   
  
An epiphany shot through me in a sudden burst. It was nebulous and inarticulate, but it was powerful. The only thing better than knowledge: understanding.  
  
The bus stop was only a few blocks away, so I started toward it. My brisk walk soon turned into a jog, which turned into a sprint, which made my feet leave the ground –  
  
I was up!  
  
Two little girls looking up at their kites. One pointed and yelled, “Mommy! Mommy!” The other waved and grinned, so I did loops that made them both jump up and down and clap. I didn’t think I’d ever felt so thrilled to be a mutant. Different, yes, but special and in a good way.   
  
And why not? This was my country. I spiraled up the Washington Monument and dove back down, gliding low over the Reflecting Pool. I was getting “oohed” and “awed” at, pictures were being snapped. As I arched over the Lincoln Memorial, I wanted to yell, “Freedom!” or “God Bless America!” or something stupidly patriotic, but I just laughed.   
  
I bet at least one person down there was ardently wishing he or she could shoot me right out of the sky. They could kiss my aerodynamic ass. It was partly because of people like them, their hate and fear driving everyone to the edge of the extreme – breaking the nation into us and them, pitting us against ourselves – that I even had the power to fly.   
  
That realization gave me an extra burst of energy that took me all the way back to my apartment. A lesson that hit me by way of epiphany but one that I’d learned and accepted only over time: share the burden.


	6. Yesterday

Logan was asleep on the single lounge chair Scott had managed to squeeze on out on our balcony, the butt of a cigar on the ground below his dangling hand. A book lay open on his chest. The Things They Carried, judging by the color of the cover. So very fitting.  
  
Turning over so I my feet were dangling toward the ground, I slowed my decent and landed beside his chair. Studying his face, I wondered if I should wake him up. He was exhaustion personified, but he didn’t look terribly comfortable, stiff as he was, his features drawn up in an immobile scowl. No rapid eye movement, so he wasn’t having a nightmare. I laughed soundlessly. Only Logan could be dead to the world and still look plenty pissed off by it.  
  
Slowly, I leaned down to brush my lips against his forehead, trying hard not to remember that touch was equal parts joy and agony.  
  
Reflex kicked in before I had time to intellectually register the hand clamping around mine or the other shooting toward my throat. I caught his wrist, yelping, “Easy!”   
  
The tips of Logan’s claws pushed against the skin between his knuckles but didn’t slice through. In the span of three accelerated heartbeats, his disquietingly vicious expression flattened.   
  
“Marie,” he stated, as if to remind himself.   
  
He released my hand. I let go of his wrist. We watched each other’s finger marks fade.   
  
“Didn’t mean to do that,” he apologized, turning away.  
  
I forced my tone casual. “Hey, don’t worry about it. I’m a lot stronger than I used to be.”   
  
Rubbing his wrist as he glanced back me, he said in all seriousness, “I’m glad.”  
  
“That’s not the only thing different about me. You missed my grand entrance.” Drawing up my body like Kurt used to when he stood before an audience at the Munich Circus, I leaped into a series of flips that would make him proud. When I touched down on the edge of the balcony, Logan had both eyebrows raised.   
  
Grinning, I struck a Wonder Woman pose. Also fitting, because if there was anything Logan and I needed it was a Lasso of Truth – we’d finally get everything we needed to say out in the open and then we’d still have time for some light bondage play afterward. “Duh-duh-daa-daaaa! Be impressed.”   
  
Logan feigned non-interest. He looked up at the cloudless sky. “Nice weather we’re having.”  
  
“Spoilsport,” I laughed, plopping my butt down gracelessly on the rail. Logan winced at that, so I teetered on the edge of falling just to give him a hard time.  
  
He shook his head. “You worry me, kid.”  
  
“Same to you, bub. But fear not. I inherited a lot of things from you,” I admitted. “Your Molson addiction, your inexplicable penchant for giant belt buckles – I kicked your death wish a long time ago.” That last part I said seriously. If we were going to talk, we weren’t going to do it halfway. I wanted to start with the only thing about Logan’s nature that truly frightened me: his lack of self-regard.  
  
Logan closed his book as he sat forward, his legs going to either side of the long chair. He looked at me expectantly, his expression asking me if I really wanted to get into this. I committed by sliding off the balcony and sitting cross-legged at the end of the lounge. No running this time.  
  
“Marie, you remember – In Canada when I about left you cold out in the middle of nowhere. You remember what you said to me?”  
  
The corner of my mouth tugged up. “Of course I do. I said, ‘I saved your life,’ and you said, ‘No you didn’t’ like a big, ungrateful jerk.”  
  
“Right,” he replied wryly. “But you didn’t save my life in the bar. First time you touched me, that’s when you did it.”  
  
“You mean the first time I almost killed you.” So I’d scared him out of wanting to die. Great.  
  
“The first time you let me save your life,” Logan countered. “I should’ve killed you. About anybody else would’ve died, and I would’ve been…You were just some girl, world-weary but charming as hell, with one of those big, bright futures ahead of you. For the worst second of my life, I thought I stole that from you. Then you took it back. You gave me a second chance. Then you gave me a third chance, when I thought I was too late. You’ve given me nothin’ but chances, and I won’t ever be able to pay you back for ’em.”  
  
I looked at him quizzically. “You made me a promise when I didn’t have a single person in the whole, wide world. If it weren’t for you, I never would’ve trusted Professor Xavier. I’d be alone. I’d be dead, or I’d be alone.”   
  
“That promise – I’ve let you down more than once.”  
  
“Just the once.” I poked at the chair’s canvas covering. “I told myself a million times that I understood why you left – but two years?”  
  
Logan let out a weary sigh through his nose. “Two years to do what? Locate the base? That took three months. The rest of it…We started a war. Takes a bit of doing.”  
  
“War?” My brain could hardly process the word. “Mutants against humans?”  
  
“Civilian against military. Mutants on both sides. Some against their will.”  
  
“I don’t understand. How can there be a war nobody’s even heard of? It’s 2014. A bomb goes off in Burundi and CNN’s got full coverage within the hour.”  
  
“You think if something’s not televised it’s not happening? It’s been nearly a decade since anybody’s had eyes on the ground in ’Nam.” Logan shrugged. “But I get your point. Nothing stays internal forever. Get major cities involved, somebody’s bound to notice. That’s why we had to get out of there. How would it look?”   
  
“Okay…” I thought about taking the high road, but forced myself to say what I really wanted to. “But you were in contact with the Professor. I didn’t hear a word from you. Not a phone call, not one letter. A message the Professor could give me – ‘Miss you, kid.’ ‘Wish you were here, you’d like the food,’ ‘Met a local girl the other day. Needed repeated saving, reminded me of you.’ Nothing. Two years. Why?”  
  
“Because – ” Logan scrubbed both hands over his face. “Because I knew, every time I talked to you, you’d ask me to come home, and I would want to. Every time I thought about you, I wanted to. I couldn’t have that. I needed to be soldier.”   
  
He reached behind him to pull out his wallet. He dumped out a stack of ripped, glossy scraps and dropped them between us. One of them had part of my face on it.  
  
The eight pieces the picture of us had been torn into were all accounted for. I fit them together like a puzzle. I gave him that picture before he left. I wanted him to remember me – remember us – by it.  
  
“Why’d you tear it up?” I asked as neutrally as possible.  
  
“I didn’t. Dragon did.”  
  
I hadn’t expected that answer. “Why?”  
  
“To teach me a lesson.”  
  
“About being a soldier?”  
  
“Yeah.” He scooped the pieces back up and placed them back in his wallet. “I would’ve fixed it, but I didn’t have any tape.”  
  
“I’ll get you a new picture.”  
  
“I don’t want a new picture.”  
  
“I’ll get you some tape, then.” My eyes were stinging, and for once it wasn’t out of self-pity. “I’m not sorry I kept you from being the perfect soldier, whatever that means. We’re supposed to be the good guys. No one should ask you to give up yourself like that. I don’t care what the cause is.”  
  
Logan shook his head. “I’m a soldier. That’s who I am. Civil War to Vietnam and more – That’s my past. That’s all I ever was. Soldier.”   
  
“What? No –”  
  
“A hundred and fifty plus years. It’s in the file. Vietnam is when I started working with Stryker. His special project.”   
  
“He indoctrinated you.”  
  
“What the hell did he have to indoctrinate? All that blood – ” Logan stopped himself. Closed his eyes, held his breath.  
  
It was agony to watch his face. I wanted to look away, but I didn’t dare in case he opened his eyes and caught me.  
  
“I – I don’t believe that. You can’t believe that. One hundred and fifty years is a long time. No one can go that long without loving someone. No one. You had a family once. You had a name.”  
  
“James Howlett,” he gritted out, almost like it was one word. Then he looked at me.  
  
I was astonished. I instantly had a million questions. The one that came out was, “And ‘Logan’?”  
  
“I used it as my alias even before I started working with Stryker. It doesn’t say why.” He paused. “And I don’t know how I remembered it, when I’ve forgotten everything else.” He shrugged. “But I thought it could be mine, so I kept it.”  
  
“Logan is yours. You made it yours, just like you made yourself so much more than a soldier. You are more. You’ve got to know that.”   
  
He reached over still my hands. I froze, not realizing how badly I’d twisted my gloves. He drew one off by the tip. The other one he left for me to take off myself.  
  
“I do know that,” he said after a moment. “Like I said before, I owe you.”  
  
I rested my bare hand on his forearm.   
  
He’d given me touch. I wanted to use it to comfort him. Lightly, I trailed my fingertips down the raised vein in his arm.  
  
Eyes on our skin, he said, “It’s good that you can still do that.”  
  
A terrible sort of hope against hope swelled inside of me. Before, he’d apologized for being the one who could touch me. But that had been two years ago. To me, it sounded like he’d changed his mind. Could be that he’d changed his mind about other things between us, too.  
  
A sigh, almost a groan, escaped his throat. “You can’t look at me like that.”  
  
“Like what?” Shyly, I caught my lower lip.  
  
This time it was definitely a groan. “C’mere.” Impelling me by my elbows, he turned me around and pulled me toward him so my back rested against his chest.  
  
As I tried to settle into one of our old, friendly cuddles, the thump of my heart was embarrassingly loud. His arms enveloped mine, skin touching skin all the way up. I was self-consciously rigid for a long few minutes, before I let myself suddenly relax into him. Logan surrounded me so fully, I could feel our connection open once more. Whatever he was thinking was warm and tucked me in better and safer than any cocoon ever could.  
  
Nuzzling my face under his chin, I asked, “Do you think the reason you were so willing to believe the solider explanation is because it’s easier? I mean, easier than knowing that there’s still a lot about your past you don’t know. Like, I know going back to Vietnam was supposed to be the end of your search, but now you just have more questions.”  
  
“Yeah,” he agreed succinctly.  
  
“That’s sort of how I felt when I read my file this morning. I was expecting...a lot more. But it’s just a version of what happened. A really clean, really nonjudgmental version. You’d think I’d be happy, right? But I’m like you. Good or bad, I just want the truth. I’ll never have that. I can’t even remember it right, and I was there.”  
  
He didn’t have to ask what “it” was. He knew. And he didn’t have to ask me to talk to him, because I started telling him my side of it immediately. To the best of my ability, I took responsibility for what I’d done – me, not Warbird. She was merely an influence. I should’ve been stronger than her.   
  
I hadn’t been, and because of that I’d hurt people. Not only John, but others as well. I didn’t have names to match with a lot of the faces. An older man, the landlord of the building the Brotherhood had decided to use. I could still hear the sickening pop his index finger had made as I twisted it into snapping. The landlord had given in quickly after that, which had been disappointing to me. But his agreement to forgo the issue of rend indefinitely went a long way in securing the Brotherhood’s trust in me. I’d done more than that. A lot of worse things, some better. I’d said horrible things, too. Especially to Jubilee. Warbird had had a vendetta against her since Jubilee had nearly bested her in the fight in the metro rail.  
  
Reliving the whole godawful experience was cathartic in a way. I got it all out. I didn’t cry, which surprised me. My eyes were actually painfully dry. I talked until I didn’t have anything more to say. It took a long silence before either of us realized that I was through. Letting out a shaky sigh of release, I sat forward so I could look at Logan. His expression conveyed his open, unspoken fury.   
  
“I didn’t tell you that so you’d feel angry or sorry for me. I wanted to make it right between us. No secrets. We don’t need to pretend to be perfect for each other. We’re better the way we are.”   
  
His scowl turned helpless. “I should’ve been there. I would’ve found you.”  
  
“I didn’t want to be found. Besides, you’re here now. When I actually have the ability to appreciate your help. That’s good enough for me.”  
  
All harshness in his features softened. “You deserve more.”  
  
“Logan, what does that even mean?”  
  
“It means – I don’t know. Good stuff. Stuff you can count on.”  
  
“Well, sure. Everybody wants that. Don’t you?” He didn’t respond, so I said, “I want that for you.”  
  
“Thanks.” There was a hint of derisiveness in his voice.   
  
“Just so you know, being able to count on something and being trapped by it aren’t the same.”  
  
“Yeah?” Doubtlessly, he wasn’t thrilled with the way this conversation was going, but he was willing to humor me.  
  
“One’s usually a positive connotation, the other’s always negative.”  
  
“The positive one’s worse. You count on something because you want it. If you want something, you’re trapping yourself.”  
  
“You get what you want. So what if you’re trapped?”  
  
“Then you can’t get out.”  
  
“Why would you want to?”  
  
“Maybe you don’t want to. Maybe you have to.”  
  
“But why?”  
  
“’Cause maybe it’s not healthy, loving anything that much.”  
  
My breath caught, inaudibly. His hazel eyes were so compelling I had a hard time forming a reply. Finally, I said, “Not healthy or too scary?”  
  
Logan clenched his jaw. “Not healthy.”  
  
My eyes fell to my bare hands, which were clasped in my lap. “If you don’t wanna talk about this, I’ll shut up right now. I’ll – I’ll back off.”  
  
He cursed lowly.  
  
“What?” Was he mad at me now? I thought I was doing him a favor.  
  
“Marie…” He said my name like it was painful.  
  
“No, no. I don’t mean back off like I did before. Not from our friendship. I just mean – Well, you know.” I feigned a shrug. “Wanting more.”  
  
He still looked like he wanted to stand up and flip over the chair.  
  
“Logan. What?”  
  
Gesturing decisively with one hand, he stated, “Either way you look at it, I end up a selfish bastard.”  
  
“Not following.”  
  
“Forget it. Forget everything, all right? Can’t we…Let’s just see what happens.”  
  
How noncommittal of him. I leaned back against him, hiding my stunned expression. Logan was willing to try. He was willing to give me what little he thought he had piece by piece, trusting me not to screw him over again.  
  
“We’ll see what happens,” I echoed.   
  
Logan answered by wrapping his arms around me again and burying his face into my neck. I concentrated on trying to make sure he felt the same comforting warmth I did.


	7. Love Me Tender

There is physicality to the past. The warm flush of remembered pleasures, the steady breathing that accompanies calm reflections, the tightness of tear-tracked skin. The sudden choke of a retrospective humiliation so strong that the eyes pinch shut, teeth bite into tongue, fingernails sink into flesh. Or the relentless gut gnawing that compresses the lungs and constricts the arteries to the heart. The hollowness of not knowing.  
  
That Logan and I had decided on a forward trajectory only increased my desire to look into our past. Over the next few days, everything reminded me of a past incident that I needed to drag up, examine, and explain.   
  
When Scott came back, seeing the two of them together inevitably reminded me of the woman I pretty much owed my entire inglorious journey into self-discovery to. Jean Grey was and would always will be the specter standing with Scott just as assuredly as she will always be the woman who made Logan want to be an honorable man.  
  
Sunday night, watching them sniff and circle each other warily, I remember, vividly, the day I’d forgiven Logan for loving Jean instead of me. I’d been looking around the Mansion for him because I’d needed his help again, perpetually, for anything and everything. I’d found him on the second floor, standing in the small balcony overlooking the enclosed garden where Jean had her memorial.   
  
He’d had his fingers stuffed in his tight jeans pocket and his elbows held out at stiff angles. He’d tucked them in when I’d come to stand beside him.   
  
Stuffing the folded paper I had with me in my back pocket, I’d leaned my forearms against the iron railing and titled my head up at his profile.  
  
“Does it feel all of a sudden like we’ve moved on?”  
  
“All of sudden?” I’d asked, really wanting to question the “we” part.  
  
“We did without for four months and now…”  
  
“Now we have a new doctor in the med lab.” I’d squinted one eye against the bright afternoon sun. “And Cyclops has started shaving again.”  
  
Logan snorted.   
  
I’d dropped my neck so my eyes were on my white gloves. “I don’t know. Aren’t we supposed to move on?” I hadn’t been able to stop myself from placing a little emphasis on the “we,” so I’d had to cover it up by placing too much on the “supposed.”  
  
He’d given me a sharp glance. “I’m not saying we aren’t.”  
  
I’d chewed on my lip, not understanding why he’d would chose to dwell on it then. I’d waited for him to stop looking at me before I’d asked, “Do you think you could have made her happy?”  
  
That question had been a slight variant on, “Why did you love Dr. Grey?” to which he had responded a few weeks ago, “Hard to say,” before giving my ankle a pat and leaving the lounge.  
  
This time, he hadn’t even answered.  
  
My heart had gone out to him. “I think you could have. In a different way than Cyclops, but I definitely think you could have.” It had cost me something to say that, because it’d felt equal parts disloyalty to myself and loyalty to him.  
  
“It stopped being about that when she died.” There’d been a closed-lipped smile on his face for me when he’d put his hand between my covered shoulder blades and directed me back into the hallway. “Did you want something?”  
  
“Kind of. There’s a big March Madness tournament going on, two hundred dollar prize, and, anyway, I really want to beat Bobby. Well, I want to beat everyone, but especially Bobby.” I’d taken out my brackets from my pocket and handed it over to Logan. He’d looked over my picks as we walked.  
  
“Why so concerned with beating Bobby?”   
  
“I want him to think that I know all about sports.”   
  
Make that needed Bobby to think that, because when he’d asked what I did with Logan, I’d told him that we watched TV, including ESPN. He’d jumped on that, asking me if I even liked sports. Of course I’d replied that I was a huge fan and concocted a couple of kernel-of-truth stories set in my Uncle Nuts’ sports bar back in Meridian to prove it. Anything to cover up the fact that I’d been willing to watch anything, so long as I got my Logan time.  
  
“You can’t make people think something about you. You can fool them awhile, but it always comes out. So why bother?”  
  
“I’m greedy. Will you please evaluate my picks?”  
  
“Okay. Tennessee, all right. George Mason, good. But what makes you think Illinois has a chance in hell at taking it?”  
  
“Kitty said – ”  
  
“Wishful thinking never won anybody two hundred bucks.”  
  
I’d thought, And wishful thinking never won Logan Jean’s heart anymore than it had won me Logan’s. But I at least had Bobby. All Logan had was rejection buried under gallons and gallons of water. It wasn’t a fair deal, so I’d forgiven them both.  
  
How generous of me, right? I really thought I’d been such a kind, caring selfless person at that moment. Thinking about it just made me want to pat my old self condescendingly on the head. Oh, me.  
  
What’d been worse, at that point I hadn’t even considered Scott’s feelings on the matter. He was completely off my radar. Whereas now I looked at him with such a swell of admiration and fond exasperation. As much as I’m like Logan, I’m like Scott, too. Same desire for control, same need to prove myself a hero, same jealous tenacity when it comes to the ones we love.   
  
I remembered, too, that day so long ago when I’d laid on my bed and tried to figure out where I fit in with the personalities that dominated my world – the ones, for the most part, I hadn’t touched. I’d been fearless that day and hadn’t even realized it. I hadn’t been afraid that turning to others would negate my own sense of self.   
  
I’d missed a step, though. My willingness to mimic my friend’s strength hadn’t made it outside of my shell. Instead of drawing them closer, I pushed them as far away from me as possible.  
  
The second night Logan was back, when we were settled in my bed to sleep, I apologized for pushing him away all those years ago. “I thought I was being strong,” I explained.  
  
“You did what you thought you had to,” Logan replied. His hold on me was tight.  
  
“Maybe in a way. But in another way, I was also running. You were being too good a friend.” He’d tried to get me to face aspects of myself that I just wasn’t ready to see.  
  
“Not the friend you needed. That’s when you picked up the elf. You gotta thing for guys who’ve saved your life.”  
  
The touch of wryness in his voice made me smile in the partial darkness. “Kurt thinks I’m perfect. You know, the paternal unconditional sort of deal. I needed that.”  
  
“I get the difference. I’m not your father, I’m your friend.”  
  
Grinning now, I snuggled in deeper. “Exactly. Despite what you may have heard about the South…”  
  
“Point taken.” He shifted his lower body away from the curve of my hips almost imperceptivity, a movement that was at odds with the way his fingers caressed my skin where the tank top I wore had ridden up.  
  
Maddened by it, I rolled onto my other side so I was half-lying on his chest. “More skin this way,” I said by way of explanation, trailing my hands down his arms and rubbing my cheek against the sprinkle of hair on his chest where his beater didn’t cover.   
  
After a long hesitation, Logan caressed my spine underneath my tank top. I would have purred, if I wasn’t too afraid that he’d stop. I pressed my lips to his collarbone, my fingertips to the twin pulses at his wrist. Skin to skin. No touch sensation in the world was more gratifying.  
  
“Go to sleep,” he told me, betraying how much I affected him with his gruffness.  
  
I pushed myself up so I could give him my best doe eyes. “Whatever you want, Logan.”  
  
“Marie…”  
  
An instant later, Logan’s fingers were tangled in my hair and his mouth was clamped under mine. My only coherent thought as I draped my arms about his neck was, Finally! That, and a moment of gratitude to Jubilee for buying me the tiny pair of shorts that Logan’s hand was inching up.  
  
My own hands dipped lower to his shoulders and his back to knead the skin and muscles there. He pushed me more fully on top of him. I pressed my knees on either side of his firm waist. I cupped the sides of his face, my mouth now clamped on top of his, my tongue pressing deeper. I couldn’t breathe very well through my nose and it was beginning to make me dizzy.   
  
Logan readjusted his me in his arms, causing me to slip lower. A groan escaped his throat. For a long moment, we remained still – clutching each other, breathing into each other’s mouths, utterly aware of the pressure of my body against his erection. I opened my eyes slowly and saw that his were shut tight.   
  
The reversal and the tenseness on his face told me that this wasn’t the time. Carefully, I slid from his loosening grip so that was on lying at his side. I watched his eyes open and his face relax slightly.  
  
“Can’t do anything halfway with you, can I?” His tone was gruff, but there was a wistful quality behind it.  
  
“No,” I replied, smiling a little nervously. “I guess not.”  
  
Logan gave me a squeeze and then rolled off the bed.   
  
I didn’t begrudge him his retreat. “Tease,” I mumbled, burying my grinning face into the pillow he’d just been using.  
  
“Go to sleep, Marie,” he said again, but in a way that made me stifle a giggle.   
  
Even though, for all intents and purposes, Logan had pretty much rejected me just now, I didn’t feel any of the shame I would’ve felt two years ago. What’s more, the kiss had been a natural and mutual evolution of the moment. How absolutely gratifying. Why the hell had I thought just days ago that forcing whatever Logan and I had was the best way to go? Spontaneity was so much sexier.   
  
Hope ached in my like a bruise; we’d made progress.


	8. Here Comes the Sun

And, lo, I finally, finally had enough self-confidence to just relax. Good thing, too, because Logan needed more R&R than anyone with his healing ability should have any thoughts of. Further proof that his time in Vietnam had been, to borrow a phrase, fucked up beyond all recognition.  
  
And not only had the past two years been FUBAR, Logan was suffering from an avalanche of disjointed, bloody-minded memories of his soldiering past. The resulting nightmares, despite my healing and super strength, made him wary of turning me into so much shredded material, so he took up residence on the pull-out couch. Over the next week, we fell into a routine where I would cuddle up with him on the couch until I inevitably feel asleep. Most of the them, I woke up tucked into my own bed, but a couple times he let me stay with him all night.  
  
During the day, Scott and I worked while Logan did whatever Logan did. There was a glib levity about him in the daytime, mostly, I thought, for Scott’s sake. Around Scott, he was the same old hostile, sardonic Logan with his one-track mind and unveiled insults. Watching Logan and Scott interact was like an impromptu psych lesson on male bonding techniques. It was enlightening and entertaining at the same time. Actually, the way all three of us interacted with one another was more than slightly dysfunctional. But it worked for me.  
  
I came home one evening with some takeout and found the guys playing cards. Billy Idol was on as background music. “Kicking it eighties-style again, there, Scott?” I observed, setting down the Chevy’s Tex-Mex bags and my purse on the bar, which separated the kitchen from the living room.   
  
Skipping the pleasantries, Scott went directly for the food. “Did you remember my hot sauce?”  
  
“Yes, I remembered your hot sauce.” I shook my head despairingly at Logan, who was still sitting at the table. “I forget one time – ”  
  
“Twice,” Scott interrupted, scraping his dinner out of one of the Styrofoam boxes and onto a plate.  
  
“It was not twice. It was only once.”  
  
“It was twice.”  
  
“Saying it louder isn’t going to make it any more right.”  
  
“Taking that tone won’t make it any more wrong.”  
  
“When’d you two get married?” Logan murmured, his eyes on the poker chips he was stacking.  
  
Scott and I immediately stopped arguing. We laughed a little, as an afterthought.   
  
“Sorry about that,” I replied. “We have a tendency to bicker, if you haven’t noticed.”  
  
“I’ve noticed.”  
  
“Jealous?” Scott asked, sending him a triumphant smirk.  
  
Purposely turning around so I couldn’t see Logan’s reaction, I slipped off my pumps and tossed them over by the door. “Okay boys, no more fighting. It’s been a long day. The big fundraiser dinner tomorrow is hell on everybody’s nerves.”   
  
“What happened to you being a glorified secretary?” Logan asked, getting up.  
  
Padding around into the kitchen, I yawningly complained, “Only when I’m not a glorified bulletproof vest.”  
  
“I hate it when you sell your position so short,” Scott said, clearing a space for his dinner on our round kitchen table. “And if you don’t want to do the menial tasks then don’t. I’ve always said you should integrate yourself in more with the security staff.”  
  
“I’m not packing the right kind of ‘heat’ to merit an invitation to that club,” I said, rolling my eyes. I took down two plates from the cupboards and sat them next to the remaining Styrofoam boxes. “Besides, it’s what McKenna wants. He’s the president. I can’t say no to the president.”   
  
“Sure you can,” Logan disagreed, pulling out silverware from the drawer closest to the sink. “‘Mr. President,’ you say, ‘With all due respect, fuck off.’ That simple”  
  
Amused, I shook my head. “Yeah, that’s exactly what I’ll say. And then get fired and possibly jailed.”  
  
“Would getting fired be a bad thing?” Logan held out a spoon.   
  
Taking it, I scooped out his burritos onto one of the plates and my chicken fajitas on another. “Considering I effectively dropped out of college, I’m pretty sure this the best job I’m ever going to get. Outside of the X-Men.” I took our plates to the table. Logan got us a beer and a Dr. Pepper from the refrigerator, and then sat down beside me.   
  
“Speaking of jobs and the X-Men,” Scott said between mouthfuls, “I spoke with Charles today. He’s making a lot of changes.”  
  
“For the dinner? I hope it’s additional manpower. Er, peoplepower. Mutantpower? Whatever. Just, more is better, as far as security is concerned. Pretty much all the mutant sympathizers in politics are going to be there. That’s almost too good a target to pass up.”  
  
“Charles knows that, believe me,” Scott replied. “All the X-Men – even the juniors and the reserves – will be there for the dinner. But, after that, the Professor’s going to Tokyo to exchange favors with Tokuzawa. Tokuzawa’s going to get his best guys working with Karma and Dragon on the files from the base we haven’t been able to decode yet, in exchange for the Professor getting Magneto and all his influence out of Japan. The Professor’s leaving Storm in charge of running the school, and me in charge of recruitment, for the school and the X-Men. So, I’m going back to Westchester, and Keller’s going to take over my lobbying. He’s been wanting to set up some Washington connections before he graduates, so this’ll be the perfect opportunity for him.”  
  
“Oh, Scott, no. I can’t live with Keller. I’d kill him.”  
  
“Well, you have a choice. You can either stay here with Keller, or you can let Colossus take over guarding the President and become a recruitment officer.”  
  
“Recruitment officer?”  
  
“I’m delegating my job. I find them, and then you and Logan go get them.”  
  
“Logan.”  
  
“That’s right. We have to have something for him to do, besides sitting around all day watching TV and eating all our food.”  
  
Logan, in the middle of a long swig of beer, flipped Scott off.  
  
“So, what, we’d live back at the school?”  
  
“I guess so,” Scott shrugged.  
  
“I’ll think about it,” I replied, poking a piece of chicken with my fork. Doubtless, I was going to take the recruitment officer job, because I wasn’t about to let Logan go anywhere without me. I just wished we could stay here. This was my territory.   
  
The past week or so had been great. While I was gone, Logan had nothing to do but wait for me to return. I was a little afraid of slipping back – of Logan resuming his role as the big man, and me being, at best, his sidekick.  
  
I knew he had an opinion on the matter, but he didn’t betray one.  
  
After we ate, the three of us played a few hands of poker – Logan dominated – and then a few rounds of my favorite card game, Spite and Malice. As usual, Scott called it a night at precisely eleven o’clock and we turned on the news. Even though it made my brain hurt, we tended to watch a lot of FOX.  
  
That night’s debate was about the registered mutant alert system being adopted in a lot of red states, particularly back home in Mississippi. As it stood, if there was a registered mutant in the vicinity – tracked through credit cards or whatever – you could elect to get a text message and, as the whiney, alarmist host Susan Somerholden said, “Make sure you’re clued into the potential danger at all times.” The guest, a mutant right’s activist named Paul Vincent – one of the Professor’s contacts, according to Scott – argued, “Registered sex offenders have more right to privacy.”  
  
Scarily enough, Governor Sherman, who just had to be from Mississippi, wanted to up the ante by supporting a law that would require all mutants in the state to have a transmitting chip placed in their hands so that their activities can be monitored.  
  
“Good, honest mutants – and I’ll admit, they are out there – have nothing to fear from this bill,” Susan lipped, liked she’d never been introduced to Orwellian philosophy.  
  
Paul shook his head emphatically. “Good, honest mutants have a lot of fear already, with only the MRA to contend with. In a lot of places, in blood tests before getting marriage licenses, they check for the mutant gene the way they do for AIDS. And like AIDS, there’s talk of a law that requires mutants to tell inform their partners about their ‘Mutation-Positive’ status.”  
  
“What’s wrong with honesty, Paul? Mutant children are a lot of responsibility. There have been so many reports – ”  
  
“Yes, let’s talk about mutant children. Let’s talk about the fact that they’re being forced to out themselves in oftentimes hostile environments. In some states they have to bring their parents along to co-sign their registration. The MRA has been directly linked to a spiked increase in adolescent and juvenile runaways. Need I remind you that the terrorist attack in L.A. was perpetuated by runaways?”  
  
“But, and correct me if I’m wrong, but you have been quoted as agreeing with the MRA in many ways.”  
  
“The healthcare benefits, the support structures – Yes. Good things have come from the MRA. But. The true test of this Nation’s integrity is how it will be used.”   
  
“You’re in favor of national control rather than local control.”  
  
“Local control didn’t work during Jim Crow. The Supreme Court and Congressional interference was deemed necessary.”  
  
“What if Democrats don’t keep the White House this election? Will you still be in favor of a National policy them?”  
  
“If Governor Sherman is elected, I believe it will be the end of personal freedoms as we know them, for mutant and human alike.”  
  
“That’s an awfully bold statement.”  
  
“It is, Susan. It is. Fortunately, I really don’t foresee the election going that way. Yes, Jim Crow laws are blatant where they were blatant before, but I see that as an opportunity for reform. The Southern half of the United States really needs to take a good, hard look at themselves and ask, ‘What am I teaching my children here? Am I teaching them compassion? Or am I only teaching fear and hatred?’”  
  
“They’re teaching self-preservation. Mutants aren’t another race – The have real supernatural powers that they can and do use against us. The polls have shown that the average American is a conservative at heart, especially when it comes to making sure their families are safe. For a lot of people, Governor Sherman represents that safety. You can’t deny the facts.”  
  
“Susan – Susan, I’m not denying the facts. I’ll agree with you, average Americans are conservatives at heart because conservatism is safety. But you have to factor in their compassion. Compassion, Susan. America is the land of personal freedom. I don’t think any true American will sit idly by and allow such a travesty – ”   
  
“People feel threatened – ”   
  
“People felt that way a decade ago, when marriage between homosexuals was perceived as a threat to the family values they held so dear. They went to their rallies and supported gay marriage bans, but when extremists took it too far, when they stepped over the line and started using the law as a means of persecution, the average American said no. They put their foot down, did a complete one-eighty. That’s why, today, gay marriage is legal in all fifty states, and why I believe that average American is going to vote Democrat.”  
  
I took the remote control from Scott and clicked the power. That was the America I wanted to live in and that was the America I believed in. I didn’t need to hear any more.


	9. Too Much

Scott said goodnight, and I left to get ready for bed then, too. Wearing silk pajama shorts, a tank top, and no gloves, I came back out into the living room a half-hour later. Logan lit his cigar the moment I sat down beside him on the couch. Despite how action-oriented he was, he favored habit over spontaneity when it came to anything remotely sentimental, and our nightly solace ritual was as close to sentimental as Logan went. That was partly why it caught me so off guard when he broke with tradition and handed me a beer.  
  
“You thought about it yet?” he asked, popping off my tab.  
  
“Huh?”   
  
“The thing. The job. You thought about it?”  
  
“Uh, not really.”  
  
“Hm.” He set his drink down and picked a wrapped package off the night stand. “I found this in the bottom of my bag. Forgot to give it to you.”  
  
Knowing from the abysmal wrapping job that it wasn’t from Logan, I had some idea of the contents before I finished opening it. I smiled. Just as I’d thought. “‘Rogue’s Mix 3,’ delightful.” I skimmed Flea’s note, rolling my eyes at what he’d written. “What a suck-up Mr. Travis Ryan has become.”  
  
“Boy tracked me down especially to give you it. Looks like you got an admirer,” Logan said.  
  
Liking his tone a lot, I smirked, “The ‘boy’ is eighteen now. But, please, no. Not an admirer. And, even if he was, I don’t like ’em young.”  
  
Too close to home. Logan brushed it off with just a, “Hm,” and another sip of beer, but definitely still a little tetchy about the age thing. How retrogressive.   
  
Setting the CD on top of the blanket, I explained, “I bet he’s trying to get me to babysit him and his friends at this mutant battle of the bands. The Professor said they couldn’t enter without supervision. I’m letting him suffer a little before I agree. Seems only fitting.”   
  
“Taking out your frustration at having to live with Scotty-boy?”  
  
“I like living with Scotty-boy. Haven’t you noticed?” I sipped my beer. “I like it here in general,” I admitted. “I like…Where I’m at. I like where we’re at. But…I mean,” I shrugged. “It could be fun. You and me, doing the superhero thing. If that’s what you want.”  
  
Logan flicked a glance my way. “You’d do anything for me.”  
  
It wasn’t quite a question, but I answered anyway. “Yeah.”  
  
“I’d do the same for you.”  
  
“I know that.” God, I loved to hear it, though.  
  
He gave his cigar a thoughtful roll. “I don’t want to you be unhappy.”  
  
“Logan, I wouldn’t take the job if I thought it would make either of us miserable.”  
  
“I think you’d like it. Lots of travel, lots of variety. Xavier’s already got a mission in mind – mutant girl on trial in Saudi Arabia.”  
  
I perked up considerably. “Saudi Arabia? No kidding? Like, a real, live rescue and everything?”  
  
“Yeah, what’d you think? I’d agree to a bunch of sit-downs in the suburbs? We’ll get the high-intensity cases. Not all of them will be international, but it involves a lot of quick travel. That means the X-Jet, and I’m no pilot. I need a partner who can handle her.”  
  
A slow, wide grin broke out onto my face. “I don’t have an updated resume on me, but I can promise you with full confidence that I’d be the best partner you could ever hope for.”  
  
“A never doubted it,” he said.  
  
And that was that.  
  
The following day, I put in my resignation, effective as of the morning after the fundraiser dinner. The head of personnel tried to refuse it on the grounds that she couldn’t hire another secretary in such short notice, but the Professor was one step ahead of him. Jackie Mueller, McKenna’s previous secretary, reappeared back at work that very afternoon with a healthy tan and an efficiently chipper attitude. For all my hard work, I got a handshake from President McKenna and an impromptu cake after lunch. Bureaucracy.   
  
Two days later, as we were wrapping up the final touches on the security at Willard Intercontinental Washington Hotel, Stephanie came out from the ballroom just glowing. “God, this week has been terrific. We’re talking multiple nods of approval coming my way. The only thing ruining my promotion-high is you leaving me. Swing night won’t be the same.”  
  
“Just think of the raise.”  
  
“Ah, the raise,” she basked. “Kyle and I are already looking for a bigger place.”  
  
“That’s fantastic. You guys deserve it. Listen – You’ve got everything in here under control, right? Excellent. Then I am going to go get the security rundown -- ”  
  
“Going through the exit strategies and floor plans again? Some more?”  
  
“I know the ins and outs of this hotel better than house I grew up in, let met tell you. The combined anal retentiveness of Scott and Carmichael is off the charts.”  
  
“Carmichael’s Secret Service. They’re programmed that way. Like robots. What’s Scott’s excuse for being an all-around anti-social blowhard? He’s never said two words to me in all the times that I’ve been over to your apartment. I don’t even know if he’s ever even looked straight at me.”  
  
It was a familiar complaint of Stephanie’s, but now I felt the need to defend Scott. “He’s not a blowhard. He’s…tightly strung. Get some liquor in him and he’s good to go to Mexico. Anyway, I have got to run. The quicker we go over all that again, the quicker I can get home. I still need to get dressed.”  
  
“Ah, yes. You’re actually important enough to warrant an invitation to this shindig.”  
  
“Mutant privilege,” I joked, and Stephanie and I hugged for the very last time. “Tell Kyle I hope his dissertation goes well. I’ll miss you guys. Be nice to Peter for me.”  
  
“Will do. And, hey, good luck with your man.”  
  
“He’s not my man yet. All in good time.”  
  
Later that evening, as I stood in the doorframe of my room and watched Logan smooth his new, tailored suit jacket – lustful, reckless thoughts dancing around in my head – I offered up all kinds of prayers to all kinds of deities that all in good time wasn’t code for an agonizing eternity.   
  
Picking out one of Scott’s ties at random, Logan grumbled, “I can’t believe I have to wear this penguin suit.”  
  
“Oh, I don’t know,” I replied, coming over to take away the checkered tie in favor of a black bowtie. “I think it’s the bee’s knees.” Answering Logan’s mildly puzzled look, I explained, “If you insist on talking like my grandpa, I have no choice but to make fun of you.”  
  
Logan scowled. I grinned. I put the bowtie around his neck and began to tie it for him. If I deluded myself enough, I could almost pretend we were a married couple getting ready for a night on the town. Smile gone wistful, I fixed his collar and brushed some nonexistent lint off his shoulders. “You look good.”  
  
He looked down at my simple green dress and gauzy black long-sleeved cover. “So do you.”  
  
“Thank you,” I said, my lips close to his ear. I gave him a kiss on his bristly cheek. His mutton chops didn’t quite go with the suit, but, then again, my streak didn’t exactly go with the dress. Just went to show that we’re a well-matched misfit pair.  
  
“I don’t – ” He stopped a moment to clear his throat. “I don’t see how you’re supposed to fight in that thing. It looks…tight.”  
  
“Stretchy, actually. And we’re potentially dealing with a human enemy tonight. That’s not much of a fight.” Knitting my eyebrows together, I was about to make a comment on the awkward rhyming when I felt Logan’s warm hands settle on my hips.  
  
Gaze directly on mine, he softly ordered, “Don’t get cocky. That’s dangerous.”  
  
“I’m not cocky; I’m experienced. There’s a difference. And don’t you go looking for trouble. The security around this dinner is the best I’ve ever seen. We’re going to be fine.”  
  
“You making bets?”  
  
“I could be persuaded. How about this – It’s a ball, right? If we reach midnight with smooth sailing ahead, you have to dance with me.”  
  
Logan caught my chin and pulled me forward for kiss that was as unexpectedly soft and sweet as it was brief.   
  
“Marie, you’ve always been an optimist.”  
  
“You love it. And me.”  
  
He did needn’t to admit it for me to feel its truth. It’s kind of funny. All the time I spent worrying about whether or not he loved me enough, he was right there worrying whether he was going to smother me if he held me too tight. The fact that we two frustratingly oblivious people had made it even this far was no small miracle.


	10. The Long and Winding Road

Want to hear something I’ve learned?   
  
Life isn’t fair and too often things are in flux, yadda, yadda. But sometimes, just sometimes, the optimists of this world get to have good days.  
  
This was a good day, and it was going to be a good night, too.   
  
Security really was the best of the best. Earlier in the week, we’d successfully thwarted three separate attempts to smuggle explosives into the hotel’s boiler room, which was two stories directly underneath the ballroom we’d reserved for the dinner. And even with those small victories, nothing was left to chance. Metal detectors at every entrance, barricades, heavy surveillance, rehearsed escape routes, extensive background checks for all guests and staff, legions of Secret Service men stationed inside and outside the perimeter, an on-site bomb squad, X-Men – the works. We were prepared for anything.   
  
After dinner and the first round of endorsement speeches and pledges, the guests left their seats to mingle and dance. Nonchalantly sipping water from a wine glass, I kept a vigilant eye on the four key attendees: President McKenna, Professor Xavier, Representative Reis-Steeves, and Mystique.   
  
We were supporting the reelection of Mystique-as-Senator Kelly only because her opponent was Edward Damschroder, an anti-mutant Democrat from Ohio. What’s more, there was much to be lost and nothing to be gained by exposing her.   
  
The upcoming congressional elections, though important, were not the focus of discussion. Representative Katherine Reis-Steeves, the House minority leader from Massachusetts, had stolen the show when she’d announced her candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016 at a press conference earlier that day. Her work on the Equal Rights for Mutants Act had already made her one of the Professor’s greatest political allies; this news only further emphasized her importance to the cause, and was probably going to make her daughter somewhat of a celebrity around the school.   
  
I paused a little before passing Nicole and her fidgety boyfriend, unable to believe that the thirteen year-old little girl who’d sat under my thinking tree and occasionally suffered my emotions was now eighteen and a full inch taller than me.   
  
“Travis, please calm yourself,” she implored. “When you’re nervous, it makes me nervous.”  
  
“Nervous? I’m not nervous. What do I have to be nervous about? Your stepdad’s been sending me death glares all night, your mom thinks I’m less than functionally retarded, and no one in the this good goddamn world gives a flying fuck about our demo record.” Flea swiped his long blond bangs out of his eyes. “My life’s just peachy. Really.”  
  
I snorted loudly.  
  
Turning, Nicole greeted me with a wry smile. “Quite a vulgar little mouth on him, huh?”  
  
“Like she cares. She’s not a hall monitor. She’s not gonna tattle on me. Not like last time.”  
  
“Our feud’s over, child. No need to be antagonistic.”  
  
“What, you wanna fight?” Flea menaced unconvincingly, stepping into my personal space.  
  
Recognizing the danger there, I backpedaled a couple of inches. “Careful. Man, what is it about you that makes it necessary to test my limits?”  
  
“If you asked Nicole’s mom, she’d probably say the retarded part.”  
  
“That is both rude and untrue. My mother is an extremely fair woman. She would never presume make snap judgments -- ”  
  
I cleared my throat loudly, indicating with a couple discreet motions of my chin that her mother was striding swiftly in our direction.  
  
“Dearest,” Representative Reis-Steeves said with only a hint of censure, “You’re somewhat loud.”  
  
Nicole went a little pink. “Sorry, mom.”  
  
“There are an awful lot of people in here. They’re not overwhelming you, are they?”  
  
“No, I’m okay.”  
  
“Good.” Smiling, she rested a hand on Flea’s shoulder for a moment. “Why don’t you join us over here? You too, Rogue. You’ve been working hard enough.” As we walked, she put one arm around my waist. “It’s been awhile since I’ve seen you. How have you been?”  
  
“Fine,” I replied, trying to cover my unease. I’d only really talked to her on three separate occasions; she was just one of those people who treated every acquaintance like an intimate friend. A politician through and through, she also had a keen memory for detail.  
  
“Professor Xavier tells me you’re leaving us. Now, the last time we spoke you said you loved it here in Washington.”  
  
“Oh, I do, I do. I just, you know – Time for a change of venue, I guess.”  
  
“You want to go out and experience new things. That’s certainly understandable.” Winking, she added, “I was young once, too.”  
  
Laughing with her, I decided that it would be very difficult to dislike Katherine Reis-Steeves. She had that soccer-PTO-mom quality about her that made me think of Jell-O wobblers, the rhythmic pluck of a piano, and freshly cut flowers. More succinctly, she reminded me of my own mother in better days.  
  
Maybe it was the optimism talking, but I knew even then that she was going to win the heart of America.  
  
Once we were standing in front of Mr. Steeves, the Professor, and an irked-looking Logan, she gave me a pat before letting me go. “Daniel, you remember Rogue D’Ancanto.”  
  
“Yes, of course,” he replied, shaking my gloved hand. I’d only met him once. He’d been there the day Doran Ray Mills had attempted to assassinate President McKenna. Steeves was immaculately groomed rather than handsome, and was one of those men who had that triple-threat aura of wealth, power, and prestige around them. “It’s nice to see you again. Mr. Howlett was just telling us a little bit about his recent work in Vietnam.”  
  
“Whoa, you have a last name,” Flea remarked to Logan, genuinely surprised.  
  
The Professor mirrored my amusement at Flea’s astonishment over something that was normally so customary. Even Logan had to lighten up at that one.   
  
Good old Flea. He’d turned out useful in the end.  
  
The party continued, turning more Great Gatsby-uptown soirée by the minute. I danced with Bobby, for old time’s sake, and Kurt when he wasn’t with Storm, and Scott, too.   
  
I really do think there’s a crazy mixed up world out there where Jean’s alive and with Logan and I’m this whole other person in love with Scott. Hell, there’s probably a world where I’m in love with Bobby still, or John even, or Jubilee. The thought of so many unexplored possibilities would’ve made me uncomfortable just two weeks ago, but I got it now. There’s no such thing as fate and identities aren’t fixed.   
  
We’re free.  
  
Midnight came and went. Logan – the man who I love in this life and will continue to love more as time propels us ever forward – strategically kept to the opposite side of the room.  
  
Everything wound down after that. When the last guest was securely whisked away from the hotel, Scott came over to tell me I’d done a great job. He went back with the Mansion with the Professor and everybody; Logan and I took the car back to the apartment.  
  
Inside, I made a bee-line for the record player. Frank Sinatra, I’ve Got the World on a String.  
  
Logan came up behind me to help me out of my wrap and gloves. Turning, I drew my bare fingertips up along the nape of his neck. “I believe I won a bet.”  
  
“Yeah,” he admitted, hands caressing the sides of my face. “But I object to the terms. I don’t dance.”  
  
“Bullshit,” I said. “I know your secrets, Logan.” I taped my temple. “You taught me to swing dance.”  
  
He gave in and swayed to the music with me, though he threw in a half-hearted protest. “You’re gettin’ me confused, darlin’.”  
  
I raised an eyebrow at him. “Well, it sure as hell wasn’t Magneto.”  
  
No chuckle. He seemed to consider something.  
  
“What?”  
  
“You made a joke about what it’s like inside your head.”  
  
I smiled. “Hey, I did do that, didn’t I? That’s a good sign.” I started a swing step and he followed suit almost unconsciously. Big liar. I knew it. Smile at full wattage, I said, “It’s like Play-Doh, by the way. Inside my head.”  
  
“Play-Doh?”  
  
“Yeah. A little too malleable, but with a little creativity I can sculpt some pretty great things out of it.”  
  
He twirled me around and dipped me low. I tiled my head back, enjoying the dizzying feeling of love – complicated, deep, and real. My instinct was to close my eyes, to imprint the moment, but I knew there would be a hundred more like it. So I kept my attention on Logan’s face and got to watch the lopsided, rakish smile erase the lines from his face.  
  
There’s a lot to be said for living your life with eyes wide open.


End file.
